Lady Griz start hot, roll to fourth straight win

Saturday, February 24

Portland, Ore.

3 PM (MT)

Montana

19-7, 11-4BSC

Portland State

7-21, 2-14BSC

Montana

Portland St.

Photos: Scott Larson, PSU Athletics

2/24/2024 5:59:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

By: Montana Sports Information

The Montana women's basketball team, coming off a one-point, nail-biting win at Sacramento State on Thursday night, blitzed Portland State right from the start on Saturday and rolled to a 76-65 victory at Viking Pavilion.

The Lady Griz (19-7, 11-4 BSC), who won their fourth straight game, could do no wrong offensively in the first quarter, hitting 13 of 17 shots and building a 17-point lead before the game was 10 minutes in.

Montana led 33-18 after the first quarter, 44-36 at the half and did just enough to keep it a comfortable margin through the entire second half.

It wasn't the dominant win it felt like it might be early on, but it was a victory on the road in February and that's what matters at this time of year.

"We started really well offensively and that carried us through," said associate head coach Nate Harris. "We never really had that continuity again after that first quarter but we did enough to win.

"We definitely didn't have our fastball this trip. We had to win with some off-speed stuff. We got the sweep on the road and that's what you have to do when you're trying to keep pace in the league."

Montana's starters led the way, with four of the five scoring between 13 and 19 points.

Dani Bartsch had 19 on 8-of-13 shooting, Carmen Gfeller had 17 points and 12 rebounds, her 11th career double-double, Maggie Espenmiller-McGraw had 15 points and five assists, and Gina Marxen hit four 3-pointers on her way to 13 points. She added eight assists.

It was that balance that buried the Vikings (7-21, 2-14 BSC) in the opening 10 minutes as Montana had no trouble finding open shooters against PSU's zone defense. And the Lady Griz hardly missed, going 5 for 8 from the arc, 8 for 9 inside the 3-point line.

"We have a lot of weapons and you need that against a team that zones as much as they do," said Harris. "Zones force you to be balanced. They force you to move the ball. They are not going to give one person a ton of shots."

Montana was up and down offensively the rest of the game, going 3 for 16 (.188) in the second quarter, 4 for 14 (.286) in the fourth, which allowed Portland State to hang around.

The Lady Griz scored the first five points of the third quarter to build their lead to 49-36 and led by 10 or more for all but a handful of possessions in the second half, the lead never falling below nine.

Esmeralda Morales, the Big Sky's leading scorer, put up 31 points, hitting five 3-pointers and going 8 for 10 from the free throw line. She nearly scored half of her team's points.

All three times Portland State cut its deficit to nine in the fourth quarter, it came on points from Morales, who had 16 in the final period. And all three times Montana answered at the other end to quickly build the lead back to double digits.

"We had some really good defensive performances at key times. A lot of credit to Esmeralda Morales. She really kept them in it with some big shots, but we did enough to win on the road," said Harris.

Montana hit 12 pointers and shot 41.9 percent overall, piling up 22 assists against only eight turnovers.

The Lady Griz maintained their third-place standing in the league behind Eastern Washington (23-5, 13-2 BSC) and Northern Arizona (20-8, 12-3 BSC).

Eastern Washington held off Northern Colorado at home on Saturday, 68-63, while Northern Arizona came back from a seven-point halftime deficit to win 60-55 at Idaho.

Montana hosts the first-place Eagles inside Dahlberg Arena on Thursday night before facing Idaho (13-14, 6-9 BSC) on Saturday afternoon in the Lady Griz' final home game of the season.